


Pursued by God's Agents (or pitch devils)

by Zee XI (Zookimer)



Series: The Reformation and Subsequent Heroisms of Evelyn Antony Stark [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Afghanistan, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Genderbending, Genderbent Tony Stark, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, because reasons, just as a general rule
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-23
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 09:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/977165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zookimer/pseuds/Zee%20XI
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was said that Evelyn Antony Stark was cut, every inch, from the same stock as her father, that she would carry out and improve upon the legacy that was Stark Industries.<br/>Then Afghanistan happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from 'Captivity' by Louise Erdrich

Evelyn Antony Stark, informally known as Tony, was trying not to be finish her drink too fast.

"Okay, seriously, I feel like I'm being hauled into a Senate subcommittee hearing. What did I do?"

Silence in the humvee. Or rather, the Funvee, as she'd detailed to Rhodey before they'd left the testing site; he'd been resigned to either the HoHumvee or the HumDrumvee, she didn't know which. Hadn't payed attention enough to care, she was mostly trying to poke fun at him a bit, as was her habit. He was her best friend, that was their brand of humor.

"Are you guys not allowed to talk or what?" she tried again.

"We're allowed to talk, ma'am." the skinny uniform in the back seat next to her spoke up. He couldn't have been more than his early twenties.

"Oh, so it's personal?"

The driver spoke up, "No, you intimidate them" 

Tony grinned. The driver was distinctly a woman. Awesome. She felt less awkward now. "Is it really me, or did you train 'em to respect a lady first?" The two men laughed, "Yeah, come on, guys, laugh. It's funny. I promise."

"Can I ask you a question?" The front passenger asked.

"You just did." A beat. "No, of course you can. Lay it on me."

"Is it true you went 12 for 12 with 2006's Maxim models?"

"Sort of. March was engaged and August was hardcore Catholic, but both July and December were twins, so it worked out anyway. I might be able to hook you up with November, if you want." Front Passenger got kind of a dumbfounded grin. Back Seat raised a hand timidly. "Dude, you're kidding me with the hand. What's up?"

"Is it cool I take a picture with you?"

"Yes, it is very cool. It is the coolest cool you will ever experience. Close to absolute zero, that's how cool it is."

-

Explosions. Tony couldn't see, couldn't hear. She desperately hoped they hadn't shattered her eardrums or permanently blown out her vision.

Her vision returned just in time to watch a missile with her name on it explode right in front of her.

-

Surgery without anesthetic was no fun. Tony blocked out most of it. What she did remember was tinged with fear and pain and just... red.

Soon after, still woozy and half-delerious, her head was swaddled in cloth and she was hauled into a room where many people were speaking in languages she couldn't have understood, even if she was in perfect health.

-

She woke fully when she tried to roll in her sleep and felt something at her center tug painfully. Actually, there was a wire running across her chest as well. And gauze.  And. And something was missing. But she couldn't tell, she was too groggy, and the room was very dimly lit anyway.

"I wouldn't move too quickly if I were you." said an accented voice.

Her chest was bound up incredibly tightly, uncomfortably, and it ached. She tugged at the gauzey bindings, ripping until she exposed a metallic circular plate attatched to the end of the wire, and a lot of half-healed tissue, much flatter than it had been before. There was a feeding tube or something going down her throat through her nose; when she pulled it out, it made her gag.

As soon as she finished choking from the sensation - which took several seconds, it left an unpleasant sort of tickle - she tried to speak, though mostly what she got was a feeling of painfully cracked lips and sand in her mouth, and what came out was no more than a hoarse whisper. "What the hell did you do to me?"

"What I did?" The man chuckles once, and Tony thought maybe the laugh was a hollow one. "What I did was to save your life. Look. Sit up."

She complied, and found the man sitting by her feet holding a cup of what smelled like tea in one hand and a tiny, corked phial with shards of metal inside. He shook the phial; the shards made a dull effort at gleaming.

"These," he said, "were pulled from your chest. There were many more, enough to shred the majority of the tissues there. I'm afraid there was an infection; I had to amputate."

_Well._ That explained the missing weight from her ribs. She filed the information under the 'freak out about later' category, opting instead to ask, "What's this... thing?" She tapped the object buried in her chest where she knew her sternum should go.

"That is an electromagnet, hooked up to a car battery. Most of the shrapnel has been removed, but some I was unable to remove without killing you. That magnet is keeping the remains from entering your heart." the man answered. The way he said it was clinical, but the tone of voice was not unkind.

Tony glanced around. The cave, after one got over the lack of sunlight, was actually sort of roomy. She saw the glare of a camera lens near a corner, trained on the two of them.  
The man noticed, "That's right. Smile!" and waved at the camera. Tony did not smile. The man changed the subject; "You know, we actually met once. December 31st, 1999, at a technical conference."

"I'm sorry," said Tony, "I don't remember."

"I would be surprised if you did," chuckled the man, "Had I consumed that many shots of whiskey, I might not be able to stand, much less give a lecture on women and - I believe the term you used was 'fucking awesome radical engineering.'"

Oh yeah. Tony remembered that lecture, a bit - she'd been going through a 'this company needs more women in the employee roster' phase at the time. She hated being the only woman in her field.

She began to ask just where they were when a group of men stormed into the room.

Her fellow captive stood her up, almost instantly becoming tense. "Stand up. Look at the ground. Be quiet. Do as I do."  
"Wait, they have my guns. Where did they get my guns?"

"Did you not hear me? Do as I do."

She did. She held one hand in the air - the other holding the car battery, she figured they'd understand that it was important. Some bearded man speaking unintelligible gibberish was smiling genially, with arms out in a way that altogether made her thing was supposed to put her at ease. It did the opposite.

Her fellow captive translated, "He says 'welcome, Evelyn Stark," Tony hated that name. Evelyn. Who had decided that was a good name? She was pretty sure it was her dad. Howard had middle-named her after Marc Antony, after all. " The most famous, most brilliant serial killer in the history of America. He is honored. He wants you to build him a missile. The Jericho missile you demonstrated for the military not long ago."

Tony didn't even pretend to think. Probably not her best move, honestly.

"I refuse." _Fuck you and the camel you rode in on, buddy._

As it turned out, 'I refuse' was not an acceptable answer.


	2. Chapter 2

As it turns out, the terrorist cell that was holding her captive were well versed in the art of enhanced interrogation. Their favorite technique, it seemed, was waterboarding.

It felt like dying.

-

Soon after, they led her outside. Her head was still swaddled like a newborn; she assumed they were still in Afghanistan or at least one of the surrounding countries and not, like, China or India or something.

The main guy was showing her around an exposed area, full of tents and people and set up almost like a marketplace.

Except.

Except that there wasn't organic grocery or ten thousand homegrown jewelers working out of their bedrooms. There were not goats or cows or chickens. There was not a street musician for every fifty square feet. There was no excited gossip. There was only metal, and sweat, and searing sun, and her name painted everywhere and on everything. Well, her last name anyway. It was all Stark Industries product. She could probably name every model, probably had design input on anything made in the last 15 years.

Which begged the question; where the hell had they even gotten their hands on her stuff?

The leader-man began talking again. Her fellow offered, "He wants to know what you think."

Tony looked the leader-man right in the eyes, "I think you've got a lot of my weapons."

"He says they have all the ingredients you need to build the missile, and asks you to prepare a list of materials. When you are finished, he will set you free."

Tony smiled, as if she accepted this, and shook the leader-man's hand. "No he won't," She said to her fellow.

He smiled as well, agreeably. "No, he wont."

-

Tony did, in fact, make a list of materials. Soldering station, welding gear, smelting stuff. However, in between that day and when the gear arrived, it would take a week. So she and the man, who's name was Yinsen, were reduced to drafting and playing backgammon with spare parts. She had never played backgammon before, but Yinsen was a good teacher and Tony was a quick learner. It still took a day or so for her to get up to speed, though.

"They will be looking for you, of course." Yinsen began, "but they will not find you. Nobody knows these caves better than locals."

This did nothing to help the mood. Tony rolled. Yinsen hummed in appreciation, and they took a few more turns in silence.

"Look. Evelyn-"

"Tony. Nobody calls me Evelyn."

"-Tony. That is your legacy, out there. All of your life's work, in the hands of murderers and thieves. Is that how you plan to leave this world?"

"What am I supposed to do? Comply or not, I'm dead in a week either way."

"Well then," Yinsen, who had been leaning forward, sat back and rolled once more, "I suppose this is a very important week for you."

They took a few more turns in silence. "Yinsen?" Tony tried, "If you thought that maybe... Shit, I suck at this. If you thought that you'd like to start everything over - just drop everything and go in a completely different direction - could you do it? Even if the backlash was enormous?"

Yinsen hummed. "I think, If I could do it, I'd be confident enough that the backlash would not hurt so much."

"Mmm."

"Good roll."

-

If you had told Tony Stark a week ago that she would be redesigning and miniaturizing a high-efficiency power source that her company had built back in the 80's to power their factory, to fit into her chest to power a magnet that was keeping her alive, she would have laughed you till next Tuesday.

As absurd as it sounded, that was exactly what she was doing. Or planning to do. Right now she had to get the materials from the missiles.

Yinsen had no idea what was going on, and it showed on his face.

"Perhaps if you included me in the planning process, I would be of more use."

"You're about to be plenty useful. Don't need this," Tony threw a large piece of missile over her shoulder, where it landed with a loud clang, and picked up a pair of tweezers. Carefully, she poked around inside the missile and retrieved a thin sheet of translucent material, not unlike mica and no larger in size than a stick of gum.

She held it up to the light for Yinsen to see. "Look at that."

"What is it?"

"Palladium. Zero-point-one-five grams. We need at least one-point-six. Help me break down the other eleven."

-

It took a few days of smelting, re-jigger-ing and patching things together to finish. Yinsen was impressed.

"That does not look like a Jericho missile."

"That's because it's not. It's an Arc Reactor. Theres a big one powering my factory at home."

"But what will it generate?"

"Well, if my math is right, which it is, because it's my math... three gigajoules per second."

"That could power your heart for fifty lifetimes."

"Or something really big for fifteen minutes. This is our ticket out of here, Yinsen."

"What is?"

Tony didn't answer, just showed him over to the workbench where she'd been drafting. There was a scattered stack of tracing paper with various pieces; Apart, they looked like nothing. Together, though, they formed a suit of armor. Their ticket out.

"That is... impressive."

"Thank you."

-

Later, after inputting the arc reactor to replace the car battery, they played more backgammon and talked.

"You still never told me where you come from, Yinsen." said Tony.

Yinsen hummed thoughtfully. "It is a small village, called Gulmira. Its a nice place."

"Got family there?"

"Yes. I will see them when I leave. What about you?"

Tony frowned. "No. I suppose there isn't."

"Ah. So the woman with everything has nothing."

The fact of it was unsettling. "Just roll, Yinsen."


	3. Chapter 3

Work on the 'missile' progressed rapidly, both by virtue of necessity and because of the lack of distractions. 

Tony missed the sun, and her workshop. She missed jumping in the car and driving to Randy's Donuts when a new prototype stumped her. She missed Dummy and Butterfingers and You, sort of like her version of dogs, and she missed JARVIS's polite sarcasm and Pepper's stern reminders and Rhodey's eye-rolling over jokes he wouldn't admit to finding funny.

She missed hearing her own language. Sure, Yinsen spoke English as well as something like ten other languages, but he also was a fellow prisoner, so she wasn't sure that counted.

She was going to get them both out. She promised herself that if they got out, she would not only stop making weapons, but she'd pour a good chunk of her resources into revitalizing Yinsen's home village. Maybe springboard that into a charity-slash-volunteer-organization, end all this terrorism bullshit in the Mid East. 

At the very least, she would pay Yinsen back however possible. She owed him her life, after all. The Mistress of Death, a loose woman with an ego the size of a planet and the funds to match, the press said of her, but she wasn't completely devoid of any sense of gratitude. She knew when she owed people. She payed back her debts. 

So they worked constantly, until their limbs shook beyond which point they could hold the tools, at which point they would rest and eat whatever their captors had dropped off and play more backgammon and maybe even sleep for a few hours. 

This went on for what felt like forever; Tony had long given up trying to count days. Instead, they talked about life outside, what they would do the moment they got home.

"I don't think I've ever had to do this much hard labor in my life," Tony had said one night, when they were talking about home. She assumed it was night, anyway, they were getting close to falling asleep on the ground in front of the backgammon board. "I work out, alright? I have hired the best personal trainers, and I think I've built more muscle here than in six months at home." She flexed a bicep, "Look at this. This is insane."

"Perhaps you will have to build a forge at home," laughed Yinsen, "to retain your skills."

"You know, that's actually not a bad idea. Maybe I'll do that one day. Learn how to smith swords. Make swords cooler, or sell them at a Ren Fair. I always thought that it would have been really interesting if, instead of inventing guns and things, swords just got really advanced."

-

They went on like this, days passing seamlessly, until a group of their captors surged into their living space like floodwater. There was probably ten of them, all with guns trained on the captive pair. 

A new leader-man - different than the original - was talking to Yinsen before she really got a grasp of what was going on, it sounded like it was about her, and then holy shit the guy had Yinsen's head on the anvil and was waving a hot coal in his face while Yinsen was shouting something about the Jericho. 

"What do you want, a due date?" Tony shouted, stepping forward and drawing the guns to herself. Which, she thought, was good; Being the only one who could build their missile, they doubted they would shoot her, but it took all of the attention and anger off of the fellow who they definitely would kill. "I need him," she continued, "Good assistant. Steady hands."

New-leader-man dropped the coal and released Yinsen, who audibly sighed in relief. "You have until tomorrow," the man said in English, "to assemble my missile."

All the men left, and Yinsen and Tony looked to each other in panic.

-

They worked through the night, harder than before, forging pieces and rigging motors to limbs and arming and coding and pairing the armor to the reactor in Tony's chest. They weren't even trying to be subtle at this point; there was no time. 

The armor was big, and bulky, and required a startup sequence executed by the ancient computer with a monolithic monitor that were provided. The plan was for Tony to run blocker for Yinsen while he picked up weapons for his own defense, then blast their way out with a big enough explosion to catch the military's attention. 

"Come on, Yinsen, I need you to cut my hair or it'll probably catch fire." Tony hadn't remembered until she was about three-quarters entombed in the armor. Her hair was too long. It would need to be nearly shorn off with the razor Yinsen used to shave. 

"I know, I know."

"Short as you can, but quickly. It's not a beauty contest."

"Yes, I know. Say the thing."

There was a knocking. There was Hungarian. There was an explosion.

-

"Yinsen. Yinsen, please, you've got to get up." He was bleeding, all over the stockpile of explosives that were stored in this tunnel. "Come on, man, we've gotta move. There's a plan, gotta stick to the plan."

Yinsen smiled, coughed a bit. "This was always the plan, Tony Stark."

"No, come on, you've got a home to go back to. Gonna see your family."

"My family is dead, Stark. I am going to see them now."

Tony gulped, mouth drying out. "No, but - you saved my life, Yinsen. I owe you. You gotta stay alive so I can pay you back."

"You can repay me for your life, if you must, by not wasting it."

Tony was never a praying sort of woman, but as she closed her friend's eyes after he stopped breathing, she prayed that Yinsen would find his family safely in whatever version of Heaven he believed in. 

-

Gunfire. More explosions. Flames. Flying.

Crashing. 

Walking. So much walking. And oh, dear lord, the heat, he was almost missing the cave. 

She'd wrapped what remained of the leather welding jacket she'd worn under the suit around her head, her hair no longer providing the protection it used to. The rest of her was sunburned, and she thought maybe she'd die of thirst before anyone found her.

It was just as she was thinking that, that a pair of helicopters flew overhead and landed. Relif flooded her system, and she collapsed to her knees. 

The first person out of the vehicle was Rhodey. 

"How was the Funvee?" Rhodey asked.

Tony smiled as much as she could. "Misleadingly labled." The words felt like she'd been eating the sand beneath her feet.

Rhodey helped her up, slung her arm across his shoulder to support her weight. "Next time, you ride with me. Okay?"

Tony hoped desperately that there wouldn't be a next time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end of Afghanistan, but not the end of the story. I will be posting more of Evelyn Antony Stark. Keep your eyes peeled.


End file.
